Public Broadcasting Service funding cuts impact South Bend TV station

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- President Donald Trump signed a bill which cancels about $1.1 billion for public broadcasting.

The funding supports over 1,500 public radio and TV stations.

Due to the cut in funding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced it will start to close their doors. According to CBP’s press release, a majority of staff positions will conclude on Sept. 30 of this year.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison.

Of the many stations CBP funds, there is a local PBS station, WNIT, where it is experiencing the impacts of budget cuts.

Amanda Miller Kelley, President and General Manager of PBS Michiana WNIT, said that only around 3% of the station's content is news related, most of it is educational programming for kids. The losses are still large, as the station already cut two TV shows.

“We lost about $900,000 or another 22.5% of our budget. So, between the loss of the state funding and the federal funding, all within the same couple of months, we are now looking at a 1/3 reduction in our budget,” said Kelley.

Kelley explained what we can expect to see in the coming years.

“There will be fewer new episodes coming out, extending the length of a season, maybe instead of a new episode every week or every two, they will get dispersed less frequently,” said Kelley.

The station is digging deep into its budget to move funds around, in hopes of keeping most programs up and running.

“We know that kids and families rely on PBS programming to educate and to inspire a love of learning and to really connect with their communities, so we want kids to still have this,” said Kelley. “We want this to still be available for all kids at any time.”